10/09/2026
Tharoth Sam came to the Knai Bang Chatt to breathe. She left wondering how little she knew of her own coast.
The Cambodian MMA star and actress (First They Killed My Father) sat down in Kep with Jef Moons — the man who arrived in 2003, restored three heritage houses, and turned them into one of the country’s most singular resorts. What begins as a quiet weekend by the sea turns into a bigger question: what is being built along this stretch of coast, and who is it for?
In this conversation:
– Why Moons keeps the Knai Bang Chatt deliberately small — 18 rooms, and a refusal to call it a “hotel”
– Why he calls his staff the resort’s main asset
– Kep West’s wider push: Art for Kep, the Crab & Co table, Kep West Wellness
– The Southeast Asian Ocean Gallery, an underwater museum planned over ten years
– A Cambodian champion rediscovering her own coastline through a foreigner who’s called it home for two decades
Knai Bang Chatt · Kep West · Art for Kep — Kep, Cambodia